


you pick up all the pins

by nothingunrealistic



Category: Billions (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Non-Binary Character, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 21:19:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19028152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothingunrealistic/pseuds/nothingunrealistic
Summary: Taylor Mason, the youngest Chief Investment Officer that Wall Street has ever seen and Axe Capital's rising star, wants Winston to work for them.Which is weird, because Winston kind of figured he was already.





	you pick up all the pins

**Author's Note:**

> I watch (or at least keep up with) Billions on SHOWTIME® now, but only to appreciate what a handful of characters are getting up to. This fic - which is set during episode 3x12, "Elmsley Count" - is the result of that. 
> 
> Fic title from "I Am Not a Robot" by Marina (and the Diamonds?).

Taylor sweeps into the quant headquarters late one night, coat rippling, and says, “I have something to discuss with you,” and that’s more than sufficient to send Winston rifling through his mental database of job offers that he hasn’t gotten around to declining yet.

He’s fired. He has to be. There’s nothing else that Taylor would lead into like that, they’d just get right to the point. He’d thought he was safe after he’d put together that algorithm — it should be going live any day now — but maybe Axe had a change of heart about using quants, or the other Axe Cap big shot at his interview whose name he never bothered to learn has found out he’s in this basement and plans to re-terminate him with prejudice, or Taylor’s decided there’s no point in putting up with him any longer now that he’s built them the model they need.

“Alright,” he says, spinning his chair away from the glaring array of Bloomberg terminals. It was giving him a headache anyway. “Hit me.”

Taylor pulls over one of the other swivel chairs, abandoned near the entrance to the kitchen — that one used to be Bronwen’s, he’s pretty sure, she shoved it across the room as she was leaving — and sits down in front of his desk.

“I’ve taken your model to an investor,” they say, which gives Winston half a second of hope, because he totally called that. “He was pleased, and he’s not the only one. Axe made me the face of our raise team at the Spartan-Ives Capital Introduction today. The investors in attendance decided they were interested in buying what I was selling to the tune of a few billion dollars.”

“Holy shit.”

“Exactly. Major changes are coming.”

Major changes like a ground-level cubicle or like him being hung out to dry? “Well, not that major for me, right?”

“That’s what I wanted to discuss, actually,” Taylor says. Fuck. “You’ve done valuable work for Axe Capital. But —”

“If you’re going to fire me, can you just say so?” he bursts out. “Not a fan of the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ approach.”

Taylor blinks, apparently thrown off balance. “Why would I fire you?”

“How should I know? Maybe now that the algorithm’s done, you figure you can get someone who’s not so obnoxious to maintain it, even if they don’t know a for loop from a list comprehension.”

“I’ve told you more than once that I don’t care how you might act as long as you can deliver what I need.”

“You’ve also told me more than once that I’m an incorrigible dick with no control over my emotions and I wouldn’t be here if you had any better options,” Winston retorts. “It’s sort of a mixed message.”

Taylor tilts their head to one side, which either means that they’re thinking hard about something or that he’s fucked up majorly, and Winston slumps in his chair, tapping rapidly on one of the armrests. He’s not doing anything but proving them right by blowing up like this, _defensive, allowing your rage at yourself to manifest in boorish, childish behavior —_

“You’re still hurt by what I told you at that interview,” Taylor says. It would be a question from anyone else.

“Yeah. I am.”

There must be a clock somewhere in this basement, hung on a wall in a shadowy corner where it’s absolutely useless to him — he can hear it ticking, breaking the silence again and again while Taylor watches him still.

“It was hypocritical of me, I think. To accuse you of lashing out when I was doing so myself. You disrespected me, and I was angry about it, and I thought that for once, I could express that anger without any real consequences. I hadn’t realized that it would affect you so deeply, or that I might see you again.”

“I should have known not to say what I did.” Somehow he’d forgotten the most relentlessly repeated rule of how to do well in a job interview — research the company and the person interviewing you, especially when that person is famous enough to have their own semi-protected Wikipedia article. (He’d opened it up on his phone after that meeting, waiting for the train, and gotten as far as the second sentence — _Mason is non-binary and uses singular they pronouns_ — before shoving the phone back in his pocket to avoid throwing it off the platform out of frustration at his own stupidity.) “I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” Taylor folds their hands. “And I’m sorry for those comments. They were unprofessional and overly harsh.”

They weren’t inaccurate, though, and both of them know it. “It’s fine.” He turns his chair back and forth for a few moments, feet still planted on the floor. “And for the record,” he blurts out, because it’s still bugging him, “starting out by coming down here saying ‘I have to tell you something’ was half the problem. It’s the _Jaws_ theme of conversational openers. You hear it and you know someone’s about to get torn to shreds.”

 _“Jaws_ maligned sharks as vicious predators and contributed to their endangerment,” Taylor says. “Much like them, I’m not here to attack you.”

“And you’re not firing me,” Winston repeats, just to be sure.

“Quite the opposite, actually.”

What’s the opposite of getting fired? Being promoted would make the most sense, but there’s nowhere for him to be promoted to that he knows of, and also no part of this conversation has made any sense.

“You’re… hiring me?” he guesses.

Taylor sits up very straight. “Yes. If you’re interested, that is.”

Okay, he’s officially lost.

“Don’t I already work here? I assumed I was getting paid to sit here and debug thousands of lines of code by myself for hours on end so Axe can shave a few orders of magnitude off of his decision times.” Taylor frowns a little at that. “I don’t even have a rubber duck to talk to.”

“That’s just the thing.” They shift in their chair, enough that the one squeaky wheel on it squeaks like it’s dying for some of the proverbial grease. “I haven’t been completely honest with you, and I apologize for that as well. None of the work you’ve been doing is for Axe Capital’s benefit at all.”

“That would explain why we’re in a basement in Brooklyn.” One mystery solved, but it raises a whole heap of new questions. Maybe he should be upset about finding this out? Maybe he would be if he felt any kind of loyalty to Axe, but he’s never even met the guy. “Who’s it for, then?”

Taylor leans in, their stare unwavering.

“Axe may have raised me up today, but for months, he’s thanked me for running his company by trampling me into the dust,” they say, and _this_ is the Taylor Mason they whisper about on the Street, who’s brilliant and intense and won’t hesitate to publicly dissect every thought in your head before you even know yourself what you’re thinking. “He’s disregarded my perspective, broken his promises to me, and betrayed my trust in him, all for his own gain. And I’m far from the only person he’s treated this way. I’m building something new — right here, right now — and I want you to be part of it.”

“You’re starting your own fund.”

“Taylor Mason Capital.” Taylor says the name like it’s been trapped inside them for decades, waiting to burst out into the light. “A company that would embrace the strategies of the future and leave behind the hierarchies and backroom dealings of the past. I have the necessary capital and experience. But I need the technology and the people. I need you.”

That’s the second time now they’ve said that to him. Not _I need your contributions to the algorithm,_ or _I need your knowledge of quantitative analysis._ What exactly is so special about him, Winston, beyond his programming?

“What would my place in all this be?” he asks instead. “Same as now?”

“Similar. You would lead Mase Cap’s quant team —”

“Ugh.”

Taylor raises an eyebrow.

“I mean, it’s flattering, but you know how I am with teams.”

“If you want, you can personally interview every candidate along with me to ensure they meet your standards,” Taylor offers. “And to ensure they know what to expect from working here.”

Conducting interviews sounds like it would rank right up with root canals and blind dates as hellish experiences go, but not as high as having no control over who he winds up working with. “I could tolerate that.”

“You’d report directly to me, no managers or intermediaries to misunderstand you. And you’d make more than you are now.”

“How much _am_ I making now? I can’t tell if I’m being paid under the table or not paid at all. It’s going to make my tax returns a nightmare.”

“It’s a competitive amount. You’ll receive it soon enough.”

Winston shrugs. “More fun for the guys at H&R Block. I’m sure they could use it.”

“H&R Block spends millions of dollars on lobbying against reforms of the tax preparation system,” Taylor says. “Consider not giving your money to them.”

“…Noted.”

Taylor nods absently, looking off and away before focusing on him again.

“I understand if you have reservations.” Their voice is soft now — not just quiet, but gentle. “You came here thinking you were contributing to Axe Capital, not preparing to take from it. Your work is what’s made this move possible. And I find it… much easier, and more useful, to talk to you than to most people. You don’t have to join me. But it would mean a lot if you did.”

It strikes him, then, just how _young_ Taylor is — twenty-three, maybe twenty-four, trying to compete with people who’ve been doing this as long as they’ve been alive, because the only other option is suffocation. Trying to find anyone who’ll take their side.

And really, why would he want to side with anyone else? Who’s going to listen to him like Taylor does?

“I came here to work with Taylor Mason,” he says. “Not Bobby Axelrod. I wouldn’t have answered the phone for him. Of course I’m going with you.”

Taylor’s whole face lights up.

“I’m happy to hear it,” they say — restrained, but with eyes still shining, and Winston can tell that for once, he’s said something exactly right. “Welcome aboard.”

They stretch out a hand to shake his at the same time that he sticks out a closed fist. Both of them just kind of stare for a moment, before Taylor curls their hand shut and bumps his knuckles.

“What was it you said before? Something about crushing the market?”

“Precisely that.”

Winston grins. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Kudos and comments are always a delight, and you can also find me on Tumblr @nothingunrealistic to talk about how Bobby Axelrod deserves a broadsword to the heart.


End file.
